Mar
16
Cisco 360 Learning Program Core Knowledge Waiver
Filed Under CCIE General | Leave a Comment | by CCIE Journey
I am going to let everyone toss their arms up in the air for a little while over this before they realize it isn’t a big deal. The only issue I have is that 360 students will get extra time for the lab. That is if it really does take you thirty minutes to answer them to begin with…
Are the open ended questions worth the cost of both 360 sessions at $3995 a piece to skip them? To me the answer is no. I should be able to pass them anyways as I did on my first attempt. Now the big question is will the OEQs be coming off soon and is this a quick grab for the 360 program before they do?
Beginning April 1, 2010, Cisco will allow Cisco 360 Learning Program students who attend a Cisco CCIE® Routing and Switching or CCIE Voice workshop to request a waiver and skip the Core Knowledge Section of the CCIE lab exam. All waiver requests must be approved by the workshop instructor. No end date for the Core Knowledge Waiver has been announced, but Cisco will provide at least 60 days’ notice before discontinuing the waiver.
During a Cisco 360 Learning Program workshop, students complete a series of performance assessments that demonstrate their understanding of the CCIE material and serve the same purpose as the Core Knowledge section of the exam. Therefore, Cisco 360 Learning Program students who use the waiver will not be required to type out answers to the Core Knowledge questions and will be allowed to move immediately to the next section of the lab exam.
Mar
14
NetmasterClass 21-week Remote Group Mentoring Sessions
Filed Under CCIE General | 1 Comment | by CCIE Journey
I had a chance to sit in on a free demo of NMC’s new twenty one week mentoring session that was delivered through a Webex session this past Friday. The class was very interactive with Bruce almost pushing you to answer his questions to the class. You felt as if you almost had to participate or you were going to be sent to the corner 
You felt as if you were really part of the class. The network diagram came through really clear, along with the lecture on the network topology we were using as well.
The sessions are done over twenty one weeks on different days, depending on which session you choose. If you miss your session you have the choice to watch it recorded or attend it during another session. From what I saw, each session is ninety minutes long. I would almost have to guess that depending on the topic that some sessions would go longer. I am not sure you could hammer out all of BGP in 90 minutes.
From what I saw it was a pretty good session, and a little different way of lecturing than what I am used to. Where it fits in someone’s training is going to be up to them. One thing I wasn’t sure on is if you could follow along in the class if you weren’t working on the Cisco 360 workbooks. I am sure anyone could follow the topics, but the networks they are running on might be a bit unfamiliar. It will be interesting to see if any of the other training vendors follow suit and start to offer anything similar. The biggest appeal to someone in my position is that they are once a week on the same day. This is really helpful when you can’t dedicate time every day of the week.
Mar
3
Status Update 03.02.2010
Filed Under CCIE General | Leave a Comment | by CCIE Journey
It is a sad feeling every time I write the date and the year in the title of these posts. I look back and think wow I am still trying to get this one exam done! I am wondering if CCIE Pursuit is still searching for me on Google (upper right hand corner?) Anyhow here I am still am crawling along.
Since Monday I have finished Switching, RIP, and EIGRP from INE’s Workbook 1. I should be able to get through OSPF tomorrow. BGP is going to slow me down though. BGP is where I started to get into trouble on my lab attempt in October and it just snowballed from there 
Some of this stuff I am just having trouble getting my head into. I either waited too long to start back up, or not long enough. I am just dreading getting into more of the new topics it feels like they just dumped onto a huge pile already. I am preparing to go through both my INE and Narbik labs once I get into my weak areas like advance BGP. I think I was in too much of a rush to move through the topology labs and into the full labs last time. Now you toss in the complication of the troubleshooting section and you have to wonder how do you fit that in to the mix?
I did get a copy of the written exam guide and almost dropped it on a small child. It would given them a concussion Hopefully I can read through sections and prep for the OEQ’s like I did the last time. I have to take the lab or the written again by October. This way I am prepared for either. Oh well back to some labs and the long march…
Mar
1
IPv6 Myths Over At Cisco IOS hints and tricks
Filed Under CCIE General | Leave a Comment | by CCIE Journey
I like how Ivan thinks!
I will have a status update coming tomorrow or Wednesday as well. It has been a long few weeks between work, my wife spending a night in the emergency room and everyday life 
Once you’ve spent a few hours trying to understand the implications of IPv6, you quickly realize that the only significant change is the increase in the address length. All the other goals that some people had been talking about were either forgotten or failed due to huge mismatch between idealistic view of the Internet IPv6 developers had 15 years ago and today’s reality. However, you still find mythical properties of IPv6 propagated across the Internet…
Head over and read the full post Here
Feb
8
New Cisco Routing and Switch Lab Locations Over At Pearson
Filed Under CCIE General | 7 Comments | by CCIE Journey
There has been rumors Cisco did this during a beta test in August, but there was no verification. I am just wondering what the Pearson RTP location means for the lab being offered right at Cisco’s offices in RTP, or if this is just a few times per year event.
Cisco Certification Testing
April 2010
Register now to take a Cisco CCIE exam being offered during April 2010 at 20 Pearson VUE Professional Test Centers around the world.
Seating is limited and is on a first-come, first-served basis—please register today online or call the Pearson VUE Customer Service line at 877-404-EXAM / 877-404-3926 (Monday–Friday, 7:00 a.m.–7:00 p.m. CT).
Feb
5
“The death of Dynamips: they’ve got it all wrong” from Ivan Pepelnjak
Filed Under CCIE General | 1 Comment | by CCIE Journey
A good read if you were starting to get worried about Dynamips atleast for now
Today I really wanted to write a deeply technical post (for example, Joe Cozzupoli sent me working configs for QPPB in Inter-AS MPLS VPN environment), but a gem from the SearchNetworking site caught my undistracted attention: they claim the licensing changes introduced in IOS release 15.0 target illicit use of Cisco IOS by Dynamips. The story quotes two of my blogger friends: Stretch and Greg (congratulations to both !!!). Each of them makes very valid points (I am wholeheartedly supporting Stretch’s plea for educational licenses), but somehow the story’s author managed to mix ingredients from their stories to come to a sensational (and totally wrong) conclusion (with a great headline).
Jan
31
I Always Develop ADD When I Read QOS
Filed Under CCIE General | 1 Comment | by CCIE Journey
No matter how hard I try, I can only do so many pages at a time before my attention starts to drift away. I did manage to get through a good amount of notes and reading today. QOS buried me on my lab attempt and I really need to make sure that doesn’t happen again. Between QOS and Security I should have enough to keep me busy this week. I was going to start again with switching and move from there, but I don’t feel like I need to start over from the beginning. Everything is still very fresh in my head, and going through my notes and labs on the core topics will give me a better idea on what I need to go over on those topics. I knew if if my brain thought I was starting again from scratch there would be no way I could keep it under my total control Hopefully this week I can lab both of these up with INE’s workbook I and move ahead.
Now I have to decide what date I would like to make another attempt at the lab. I won’t pay and schedule this time unless I feel really good about it. Labs dates seem to be fairly open right now. You could pick one up for February 2nd if you wanted to tonight. The biggest obstacle will be my wife’s due date of July 14th. The worse part is the mobile lab will be in Toronto Canada July 16th. Toronto is a whole hour and a half drive from my house. I just can’t risk my wife deciding to go into lab during that week… With RTP closed until July if I want to attempt the lab sooner I will have to fly out to San Jose CA. I will have to see where I am after I attend INE’s 6 day bootcamp.
Jan
23
New and Improved Advanced Technologies Class on Demand Arriving over @ INE
Filed Under CCIE General | Leave a Comment | by CCIE Journey
Good news for current End to End customers or those that just have the COD series!
New and Improved Advanced Technologies Class on Demand Arriving
By Anthony Sequeira, #15626
INE is thrilled to announce the arrival of a new Advanced Technologies Class on Demand series!For years, this product has served as the (Tier 1) foundation for INE students’ journeys to CCIE certification. With some new instructors, and a stricter adherence to Version 4 exam topics, here are the upcoming modules you can expect through February, 2010.
Week of Jan 25, 2010
Switching
Frame RelayWeek of Feb 1, 2010
HDLC
PPPWeek of Feb 8, 2010
GRE
RIPv2
OSPFWeek of Feb 15, 2010
EIGRPWeek of Feb 22, 2010
BGP
Jan
14
Google Haiti Response Donation Page
Filed Under CCIE General | Leave a Comment | by CCIE Journey
I just wanted to post this link for anyone looking to donate and help out the people of Haiti deal with this disaster. The page has links to many different relief organizations you can donate to.
Google Disaster Relief in Haiti
I also received this through email to post:
” Hey, I read your post today mentioning how to donate for disaster relief to Haiti. I don’t know if you’ve seen this, but the international non-profit group CARE already has over 100 of its workers on the ground in the country and the organization is also raising money to deliver aid to the 3 million people affected by the disaster. The group has been there since 1954 and they have the infrastructure in place to begin giving aid immediately:
I thought this might interest you and your readers. Thank you for any coverage
you can give.”
Jan
12
Status Update 01.12.2010
Filed Under CCIE General | 5 Comments | by CCIE Journey
“Don’t wish it were easier, wish you were better. Don’t wish for fewer problems, wish for more skills. Don’t wish for less challenges, wish for more wisdom.” – Earl Shoaf
I think that quote pretty much sums everything up to this point. It is definitely time to move forward once again. I have been idle for far too long. I haven’t really done much since failing my first attempt this past October. I had some decisions to make as to what to do for equipment and material. In that end I am moving forward with my Narbik workbooks, and my INE end to end program. The biggest factor in all of this is equipment. I have Dynamips running on my Mac Mini bridged out to real 3560’s for Narbik’s and a full blown rack for my INE material. The INE rack was easy to update since I already had a 1841 router in the rack. Just used two more 1841 spares to update the rack. Budgets are tight right now, I have to make the most use of what I have available already. To make use of any other vendor material would of added another cost to everything. Also, I worked it out to receive a bootcamp in exchange for the INE banner that I have on the site. So I will be attending one of their camps in the next few months to really get moving. That in itself does not limit or influence blog posts or experiences with any material used by INE, or anyone else.
One thing I really need to do is sit down and work a plan out. I don’t even know where to begin! A good amount of the core material is still fresh in my head. Do I start with MPLS and my weak points? Do I start again with the five day COD to refresh? Do I work with INE’s workbook I and Narbik’s 2.0 and hammer down that way? Do I work right from the blueprint top to bottom? I am honestly not sure. I do have the new forth edition of the written guide as well I want to read through. Either way I have been fighting this day off for a few months, but it is time to simply move forward…
